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Title: Westover of Wanalah
A story of love and life in Old Virginia

Author: George Cary Eggleston

Illustrator: Emil Pollak Ottendorff

Release Date: September 30, 2019 [EBook #60398]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WESTOVER OF WANALAH ***

Produced by Al Haines & the online Distributed Proofreaders
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Her rescuer knew not whether she lived.—Page 8.

WESTOVER OF

WANALAH

A STORY OF LOVE AND LIFE IN

OLD VIRGINIA

BY

GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON

ILLUSTRATED BY EMIL POLLAK OTTENDORFF

BOSTON

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.

PAGE

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(Page 8) Frontispiece

Published, August, 1910

Copyright, 1910,

By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.

All rights reserved

WESTOVER OF WANALAH

Norwood Press

Berwick & Smith Co.

Norwood, Mass., U. S. A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. Peril and Passion
II. A Song without Words
III. The Best Laid Plans
IV. A Woman's Word
V. Pleasant Dreams and an Ugly Awakening
VI. Out of a Clear Sky
VII. In the Valley of the Shadow
VIII. The Shadows Fall
IX. The Courage of Womanhood
X. The Packet of Papers
XI. The Events of a Morning
XII. After the Storm
XIII. "Aunt Betsy" Takes the Helm
XIV. Westover at Wanalah
XV. Up at Judy's
XVI. Judy Peters's Diagnosis
XVII. Judy Informs Herself and Makes Plans
XVIII. Judy Plans a Campaign
XIX. The Beginning of a Campaign
XX. The Satisfaction of W. W. Webb
XXI. Flags Flying
XXII. An Unmistakable Cure
XXIII. Court Day
XXIV. A Perfect Woman—and a Man
XXV. The Great Renunciation
XXVI. Moonlight Resolutions
XXVII. The Philosophy of Jack Towns
XXVIII. The Events of a Day
XXIX. The Work of a Wild Wind
XXX. What Had Happened at The Oaks
XXXI. A Sunset Interview
XXXII. What Happened at Fighting Creek
XXXIII. Conspiracies
XXXIV. Judy's Plans of Campaign
XXXV. A Mountain Top Revelation
XXXVI. The Meeting at The Oaks

ILLUSTRATIONS

Her rescuer knew not whether she lived

162

342

366

374

436

"Now come out here, Boyd"

With the first onset of the wind

"It will be better, I think, to accept my decision as final"

He dismounted, and, with his bridle rein over his arm, joined her

"Margaret!" . . . "Boyd!"

Westover of Wanalah

I

PERIL AND PASSION

One midsummer morning in the late eighteen-fifties, Boyd Westover of Wanalah was riding along a Virginia

plantation road, accompanied by half a dozen hounds, for whose discipline and restraint he carried a long, flexible
black-snake whip. The weapon played the part of sceptre rather than that of sword. The young man had no intention of
striking the dogs with it, but whenever their exuberance broke bounds he cracked the lash in air, making a report like
that of a pistol shot, and the reminder of his authority was quite sufficient for purposes of canine discipline.

He was not hunting. He was merely riding to a distant part of the plantation he controlled, to inspect the work of

the negroes there and to give directions for its proper doing. But he liked the company of his dogs and enjoyed their
mad relish of the morning.

The glory of it gladdened his own spirit in spite of the vexing problems that were never quite absent from his mind.

Boyd Westover, a young man of not more than twenty-three or twenty-four years, had never known a serious care

until the spring of that year. Then a burden of responsibility had fallen upon him that threatened to bend even his broad
shoulders beneath its weight.

His father had died suddenly in the early spring, leaving a widow and this one son who in the ordinary course of

affairs became administrator of the estate and master of the plantation.

Then it was that the burden fell upon him. The plantation was an unusually large one, and its late owner had been

accounted the richest man in all the region round about, just as his forbears for generations past had been. Wanalah, the
ancestral seat of the family, had been for two hundred years the home of a hospitable, high living, high mettled race of
men and women, but during the reign of Boyd Westover's father the hospitality of Wanalah had outdone itself in
lavishness. There were always guests in numbers there, and a multitude of servants were withheld from profitable
industry to minister to their comfort. There were thoroughbred horses enough in the stables to mount half a company of
cavalry, and a like profusion was apparent in the case of every other provision for enjoyment and the unstinted
entertainment of guests. In brief the late master of Wanalah had kept open house for all gentlemanly comers.

But when Boyd Westover took his degree at the University in early June and returned to Wanalah to assume his

duties as administrator, he learned for the first time that the plantation had not been earning the cost of all this high living.
There was not only the hereditary debt upon the place—a debt that so great a plantation, wisely conducted, might have
borne comfortably—but added to it was a confused mass of fresh debts accumulated during his father's lifetime and in
consequence of his extravagance.

The entertainment of pleasure-seeking guests was suspended now, of course, during the period of mourning, and in

view of the ill health into which his mother had fallen since the shock of his father's sudden death, the suspension seemed
likely to endure for a long period to come.

In the meantime Boyd Westover was both perplexed and appalled by the magnitude of the problem he was set to

solve. For a time he doubted even the solvency of the estate, but later reckonings had shown him that this fear was not
justified, though the fact brought small relief to his mind, for peculiar reasons connected with the character of the
property itself. If he might have sold out everything, he could have paid off all the debts, leaving a small but sufficient
competency for his mother's support. As for himself, he gave no thought for the future. He was young, strong and fit to
meet fate unarmed.

But he could not sell the property without unpardonable offence to his own soul and to the sentiment of the

community which was to him the world. For by far the greater part of that property and altogether the most salable part
of it consisted of the negroes, every one of whom had been born on Wanalah plantation as their parents and
grandparents and great-grandparents had been before them. Among the high class Virginians—the class to which Boyd
Westover belonged by immemorial inheritance—it was held to be a shamefully impossible thing to sell a negro except
for incorrigible crime, or for the purpose of bringing a man and wife together, on one plantation.

"I simply will not sell the servants," the young man said to himself when matters seemed at their worst. "Rather than

do that, I'll run them all off north, set them free and let the estate fall into bankruptcy."

Since that time the young man's close study of the situation had convinced him that neither of these courses was

necessary. By cutting down the force of house servants to the measure of his own and his mother's modest needs, and
putting every able-bodied negro at profitable work in the crops, he was confident that he could make the plantation
carry its load of debt and slowly reduce it.

That was now his task, and in spite of the glory of the midsummer morning his mind was busy planning ways and

means, when suddenly a combined baying from the hounds arrested his attention. Looking up he saw a young woman
on horseback in a pasture not far ahead—a young woman in difficulty and sore danger.

Streamers of flaming red—the reason for which he could in no wise guess—were flying from her shoulders and a

maddened bull of huge bulk was charging her with the fury of a bovine demon.

Instantly the young man plunged the rowels into the flanks of his horse. An eight-rail fence lay in his way, but there

was no time in which to throw off even one of its rails. Without a thought of pause he urged his horse toward it at the
top of his speed, determined to force him over it or through it as the case might be. The weight of the steed and the
speed at which he was moving would be sufficient, Boyd Westover thought, to crush a way through the barrier. It was
likely to cost the beautiful animal his life, but what of that? There was another life at stake, in rescue of which the young
man was ready to sacrifice even his own—for the life in peril was that of the woman he loved, the woman who had
awakened all the passion, all the tenderness, all the chivalry of his brave young soul. To save her he would have
doomed any and every other living thing to cruel death.

The horse he rode seemed to realize the perilous choice his rider was forcing upon him and to choose the safer but

far more difficult course. Putting forth all his superb strength in utmost endeavor, he cleared the barrier at a flying leap.

As he did so his rider saw to his horror that the young woman's mount had faltered in her frightened flight, and in

the next instant the beautiful mare was lifted bodily from the ground, impaled upon the sharp horns of the bull and
evidently done to death by the goring. As the animal fell the young woman was hurled forward half a dozen yards, and
before the wrath-blinded bull could gather himself together for a charge upon her prostrate form, Boyd Westover
forced his own horse between the bull and his victim and with three or four rapid swishes of the cruel black-snake whip
across the animal's face and eyes, sent him staggering back.

The delay, as the young man knew, would be but for a few seconds, but these proved sufficient for his purpose.

Turning his horse toward the unconscious girl, he hooked his left knee around the cantle of his saddle and, hanging
almost head downwards, seized her about the waist. Recovering his position, he placed her across the horse's withers.
The bull was almost upon him now, but a sharp touch of the spurs caused the horse to spring forward at a full run in
time to save himself and his riders, though the escape was so narrow that one of the bull's horns tore an ugly gash in the
calf of Boyd Westover's leg.

The body of the girl hung limp across the withers, so that her rescuer knew not whether she lived or had been killed

by her fall. Until his horse cleared the fence again—this time scattering the upper rails as he did so—there was no time
for inquiry. But once out of the field, the young man reined in the frantic creature, and lifting the girl's head to his
shoulder, felt her fluttering breath upon his cheek.

"Thank God she lives!" he exclaimed with reverent fervor, but his efforts to rouse her to consciousness were

unavailing.

"It may be only a faint," he thought, but such fainting as he had seen among women had been far less enduring than

this, and the memory of that fact greatly alarmed him.

He reflected that in any case the shock produced by the dashing of water into the face is desirable at such times,

and turning his horse's head he rode down a slope into a shaded, grass-carpeted dell, where a bubbling spring arose.
Gently laying the girl on the greensward, but resting her head in his lap, he dashed handfuls of water into her face, with
the result of arousing her almost at once. When she opened her eyes they were vacant and dreamy, like those of one
only half awakened from sleep, but a few moments later the light came back into them, and she spoke.

"Is it you, Boyd? Then you're not dead, as I dreamed you were."

"Oh, no, I'm not hurt," he replied—ignoring his lacerated leg—"but you mustn't talk yet. Lie still till you feel better."

And with that he gently passed his hand over her eyes, closing them.

She lay quiet for a minute or two seemingly asleep, and he, moved by a sudden impulse—whether of passion or

pity he knew not—bent over and pressed his lips to hers—gently uttering her name—"Margaret."

Instantly he repented, as she opened her eyes and with a flushing face tried to raise herself to a sitting posture,

saying as she made the effort.

"I reckon you mustn't do that."

But the effort to rise was futile. Sharp pain caused her to grow pale again and she sank back as she had been.

"Where are you hurt, Margaret?" Boyd asked in sympathetic distress.

"I don't know; all over I reckon."

"Are any of your bones broken? Feel of them and see."

"I reckon not. I can't tell. The pains are all over me—mostly inside. I reckon I'm going to faint."

Boyd Westover was now seriously alarmed. He vaguely remembered hearing of persons dying of "internal injuries,"

though externally showing no hurt. Instantly he lifted the girl again and, mounting with her in his arms, set off at a gallop
toward the great house at Wanalah.

The sharp prick of a pin, as he adjusted his burden on the withers, attracted his attention to the two flaming red

bandana kerchiefs, pinned by their corners to Margaret's shoulders, and in the midst of his apprehensions for her life he
found time to wonder why she had decorated herself in that extraordinary way. He was too full of anxious concern to
question her on so trivial a matter, but she, recovering herself, volunteered an explanation, after asking him to reduce the
horse's gait to a walk.

"I reckon I was right foolish," she said, laughing in spite of her pain. "You see this is one of old Aunt Sally's

birthdays. She has one every three or four months now, and she's rapidly adding to her ninety years—a year at each
birthday. She was my Mammy you know, and so I always take her a present on her birthdays."

The girl paused in her speech as some sharp twinge of pain changed her smile into a grimace. It was only for a

moment, and she continued:

"On her last birthday, two or three months ago, she told me I would some day be an angel with red wings, and so

when I set out this morning to take her these two turban kerchiefs, the foolish whim came to me to pin them to my
shoulders and make red wings of them."

Again an access of severe pain silenced speech and she closed her eyes while her lips grew pale. Evidently the

effort to chatter had been too much for her, and Boyd rightly guessed that she had been forcing herself to talk of her
little prank by way of preventing him from saying more serious things which she did not wish just then to hear.

He in his turn resolved to say those more serious things at the earliest opportunity. He felt that in caressing her as he

had done, down there by the spring, he had placed himself under a binding obligation to explain at the first possible
opportunity, and the explanation could take but one form—a full and free declaration of his yet unspoken passion. This,
he felt, he had no right to delay one moment longer than he must, but as she lay still with closed eyes, her head upon his
shoulder and his arm about her, he realized that his present and very pressing task was to place her as soon as possible
in the tender care of his mother and her maids.

The rest must wait.

II

A SONG WITHOUT WORDS

The physician for whom Boyd Westover sent a young negro at breakneck speed, while his mother's maids were

getting Margaret Conway to bed, reported that she had "sustained painful contusions" and was additionally "suffering
from shock," but that no bones were broken and, so far as he could determine, no serious internal injuries had befallen.
He directed that she should remain in bed for a few days, and then stay quietly at Wanalah, without attempting a
homeward journey until he should himself give permission.

"Above all," he said to Boyd, "she must not be excited in any way—pleasurably or the reverse—lest hysteria

supervene."

Boyd smiled a little over the medical man's stilted diction, and rejoiced in the assurance of Margaret's safety which

the ponderous phraseology gave him. But upon reflection he chafed a good deal over the restraint the doctor's
instructions required him to put upon himself. He was impatient now to put into words the declaration of love which his
caresses had implied and promised. He was still more impatient for her reply to that declaration, for, like the modest
young lover that he was, he gravely feared his fate and was annoyed by the necessity of waiting before putting it to the
test.

Her words, spoken half consciously when she had received or repelled his embraces—for he could not determine

in his own mind whether she had meant to do the one or the other—in no wise encouraged his self-confidence. He
recalled those words:—"I reckon you mustn't do that"—and questioned them closely as to their significance, but no
satisfactory answer came. The utterance might mean anything or nothing. And what did the suddenly flushing face that
accompanied it suggest? Was it joy or sorrow, pleasure or resentment that had sent the blood to her cheeks in that
way, and prompted her attempt to escape him by rising? Wonder as he might he could not tell, and as he paced the
colonnaded porch that night after all the house was asleep, he succeeded only in working himself into a passionate fury
of impatience and maddening perplexity.

He tried to reason with himself, only to find himself utterly unreasonable. Doubtless Margaret would be enjoying

the air in the porch within a few days, resting and perhaps interestingly helpless still. The attentions he must lavish upon
her in that case promised abundant opportunity for a tenderness of care which would open the way for his passionate
declaration. At that point in his planning another and a very annoying thought obtruded itself.

"Confound it!" he muttered, "Colonel Conway is a stickler for all the conventions of our artificial social life. He will

insist upon the idiotic rule that a young man mustn't address a girl in his own house or at any time when she is under his
protection. What utter nonsense it is, anyhow! But I suppose I must obey it or bring down Colonel Conway's wrath
upon my head. I must let all my opportunities slip away, and restrain my impulses during all the time she's here, making
myself seem to her a cold-blooded brute who has taken advantage of her helplessness to force caresses upon her and
then doesn't think enough of her dignity to explain himself."

Perhaps Boyd Westover's mood was playing tricks with his logical faculties. It is certain that if he had been asked

at any ordinary time his opinion of the social requirement which he now scorned as an idiotic convention, he would have
answered that it was eminently right and reasonable, that it was imperatively necessary indeed, for the protection of the
young woman in the case against the embarrassment of having to accept hospitality or escort or favor of other kind from
a man whose proffer of love she has just rejected.

But who expects an impatient lover to be reasonable—who that has ever been himself a lover? Reasonable or

unreasonable, Boyd Westover felt himself bound to observe the rule that imposed so annoying a restraint upon him. He
might fret and fume in revolt against it, but he must bend to the custom. He resolved to wait with what grace he could
until Margaret's return to her own home. He worked out in his mind all the situations that were likely to occur during her
convalescence at Wanalah, and framed all the conversations to fit the embarrassing circumstances.

Of course the situations that actually arose were totally different from those he had imagined, and the dialogues he

had rehearsed proved to be as unfit for use as the text of a Greek tragedy would be on a modern comedy stage.

Colonel Conway, who happened to be in Richmond when his daughter's mishap occurred, returned at once and,

after learning the details, delivered his thanks and commendations in a way that overwhelmed her rescuer with
embarrassment. It was in vain that Boyd protested, disclaimed any right or title to the Colonel's extravagant eulogies of
his conduct, and declared that he had done no more than any other man would have done under like circumstances.
Colonel Conway would not have it so.

"You gravely imperilled your own life, sir," he replied in his peremptory way. "You went to the rescue of a damsel

in distress as only a gallant knight would do, with reckless disregard of all consequences to yourself. That's what I call
heroism, sir, heroism worthy of the name you bear and the proud race from which you are sprung. Now don't protest,
don't contradict, don't argue, don't answer. It is only your modesty that shrinks from the recognition of your gallantry"—
and so on with what Boyd felt to be "damnable iteration."

But when the old gentleman had gone back to Richmond, leaving his daughter to the care of Boyd Westover's

mother, the young man reflected that the Colonel's enthusiasm would probably stand him in good stead if ever Margaret
should smile upon his suit and give him leave to ask her father for her hand.

Thus in meditations sometimes hopeful and joyous, sometimes perplexed and desponding, Boyd Westover worried

through the days until the glad morning came when Margaret Conway rebelled against her physician's orders and made
her appearance in the porch. She was still weak enough and enough distressed by her bruises to be treated as a
convalescent to whom solicitous attention was due, and of course Boyd elected himself her "gentleman in waiting."

These two, brought up on adjoining plantations, had known each other from their earliest childhood, but in later

years they had seen little of each other. Boyd had been away, first at boarding-school and afterwards at the University,
while the motherless girl had been slowly and awkwardly growing to womanhood, under care of her aunt and the
tutelage of an accomplished governess. It was only during vacations that the two had met, and during the last two
summers they had not met at all, for the reason that Margaret, with her father, had been travelling in the North and
Canada and in what was then the great West during both those seasons.

It was with surprise, therefore, not unmixed with the awe of strangeness, that on his return from the University this

year he had found his little playmate grown into a beautiful and very dignified womanhood. She presided now at The
Oaks, her father's plantation, with all the gracious ease that enabled Virginia women of that time to make of plantation
houses delightful centres of unruffled hospitality, where the coming and going of guests was in no way a matter of
previous arrangement and where neither the coming nor the going created the smallest ripple in the placid self-
composure of the well-ordered life of the mansion.

So great was the change in her, or so great did it seem to Boyd, that at first he hesitated and faltered over the old

familiar form of address. It did not seem possible to him to call this dignified and almost stately young woman
"Margaret" as he had always called the little girl that she had been. He could not address her as "Miss Conway" but he
thought he might compromise on the form "Miss Margaret." The first time he addressed her in that fashion was the only
time. She looked at him in dignified surprise for a moment; then with a rippling little laugh that seemed to him singularly
charming, she said:

"If we have become such strangers, Boyd, that you must put a handle to my name, I'll give you all your honors and

address you as 'Boyd Westover, Esq., M. A., University of Virginia.' You are to call me just 'Margaret,' please, as
you've always done, if you wish to be just 'Boyd' to me."

As she spoke the words all the winsomeness he remembered in the girl came back again, but it did not dissipate

the stately dignity that had grown upon her with her ripening womanhood. It was perhaps at that moment that he fell in
love with her. Of that he could never be sure, but he knew now that his love for her was the one supreme passion of his
life. That knowledge had come to him at the moment when he first realized her danger out there in the pasture. He
recalled now the impulse that had prompted him in his half mad determination to let no obstacle stand in the way of his
reaching her in time for rescue. He remembered the horror that had rended his very soul as he saw the maddened bull
lift the mare and her rider and fling them from his gory horns. He knew now that he had done and dared in those
maddening moments, not with the humane impulse to save an imperilled life that must come to every man with blood in
his veins, but actuated by his passionate love's instinct of self-preservation.

As he ministered to her after her return to the porch, all these memories were awakened in him by a certain change

that had come over her, a shyness that was not quite reserve, but yet resembled it. He was too little acquainted with the
ways of women to understand this or to estimate it aright. It did not occur to him that the revelation he had made to her
by his passionate caress as she lay half conscious in his arms might explain her impulse of reserve. He was too scantily
versed in the impulses of womanhood to understand that after such a manifestation of his love womanly modesty must
stand upon its defence until such time as he should see fit to give more formal and definite expression to his purpose.

Yet to that caress he attributed the change. It was only that he misinterpreted its meaning. The thought came to him

that he had mortally offended her, that she resented his act in the only way possible to her so long as she must remain a
guest in his mother's house, and that upon her release from that restraint she would banish him forever from her
presence and her acquaintance.

So severely did all this torture him that on the second day of her convalescence the impulse to make an end of

suspense overcame him, banishing for the moment all considerations of prudence and all regard for conventionalities. He
had read to her for an hour, and when the book was finished, he observed a certain restlessness on her part, for which
he suggested one or two remedies, only to have his suggestions negatived. Presently she said:

"It is only that I need exercise, I reckon. I think I'll try to walk a little, up and down the porch." She rose with some

difficulty, he taking her hand in assistance. But no sooner was she on her feet than she relaxed her grasp upon his hand,
and, as he did not relax his own so readily, she seemed to shake it off. The act was not an impatient one, but he
mistook it for such. Instantly he faced her, asking:

"Why did you do that, Margaret? Why have you tried in every way to show me that my presence is disagreeable to

you? What have I done to offend you? Tell me, and I'll quit the plantation at once and stay away so long as you remain.
I have a right to know. Tell me!"

For answer the young woman looked at him in silence but with tear drops glistening in her eyes. At last she said:

"You have done nothing that you ought not, I reckon—nothing to offend me. Oh, Boyd, I'm not angry with you—I

can never feel that way. I owe my life to you, but that isn't it. I don't know what it is. May be it's just because I'm weak
—or may be just because."

With that the tears released themselves and trickled down her cheeks. She could not restrain them and she made

no effort to hide them. She simply stood there facing him and letting the honest tears flow unrestrained.

There was no need of second sight to foretell the result. Nothing in all the world so unseats a man's resolution as

the vision of the woman he loves in tears. Boyd Westover was a full-blooded young man and he acted after his kind.
He took the unresisting girl in his arms and passionately embraced her. Words on either side were unnecessary. Love is
quick to understand. But the words came also, after a space—words of love beyond recalling, words of the kind that
make or mar human lives and set Destiny its tasks.

III

A WOMAN'S WORD

Those were halcyon days that followed, while Margaret lingered at Wanalah. The barriers were broken down now

between these two; the vexing suspense was over and the most precious certainty that human kind can know had taken
its place.

And there was not the embarrassment of others' knowing. No word of their awakened love had been spoken, or

could be spoken until Margaret's return to The Oaks should impose upon her lover the duty of announcing their
understanding to her father and invoking his sanction of their troth. Until that time should come they were not "engaged"
and might pass their days and nights under one roof without offending even Virginian propriety. Convention had no
claim to control over them in those blissful intervening days.

But the shadow of it fell on the morning of the day when Margaret was to journey homewards in company with her

maid.

"I will visit Colonel Conway at The Oaks to-morrow," Boyd promised as the pair strolled through the garden

during the morning hours that alone remained to them now.

"I wonder how he will receive the news—our news, Margaret?"

"How he will receive it? Why, of course he—"

"He's rather rigid, you know, in his views of propriety, and I've sinned against light in that respect. You see I

addressed you in my own home, and not only so, but at a time when you were not able to run away."

Margaret laughed half below her breath.

"That was very terrible of course," she said in an amused tone. "But I see a way out of it, Boyd."

"Of course you do. That's feminine instinct. But tell me about it."

"Why, it's simple enough. If Father finds fault with that, you can take it all back and say it all over again at The

Oaks."

Boyd smiled over the conceit, but he was not reassured by it. The case was one in which the least shadow of

uncertainty seemed more than he could endure.

"Oh I forgot," the girl went on, teasingly; "perhaps it wouldn't be agreeable to you to rehearse the scene."

Boyd said not a word in reply, but he managed in another way to convince her that her doubt on that point was

unfounded. When she had readjusted the "flat" that she wore as headgear—it had somehow become disarranged—she
put jest aside, saying:

"I think we needn't fear anything of that sort, Boyd. My father is apt to make distinctions, just as other people are.

If he disliked you or disapproved of you, he would make trouble of course; but as it is I reckon he will brush the thing
aside and scold about the idiocy that makes such silly rules."

She paused in her speech for a space. Then she added, in a tone which the young man afterwards recalled in doubt

and distress:

"At any rate it makes no difference. Nothing can make any difference—now."

"Tell me, please," he said gently, "just what you mean by that."

"I am not a women to love lightly, or lightly to forget. Love seems to me a holy thing and to trifle with it is

blasphemy. I have given you my love, Boyd, and there is no power in all the universe that can make me take it back.

Even you could not do that. Nothing you might do—even if it were crime itself—could alter the fact that my love is all
yours, now and forever."

He drew her to him in a tender embrace, but spoke no word in reply. Speech in such a case must be an

impertinence. Presently she went on:

"That is what I meant, Boyd. I have promised to be your wife. I shall keep that promise if the stars fall. I have no

doubt my father will cordially give his consent; but if it should be otherwise, it will make no difference—I shall keep my
promise."

How those words came back in after time to Boyd Westover! And how he pondered them in amazement and

bitterness of soul!

IV

THE BEST LAID PLANS

Margaret was right in her anticipations regarding Colonel Conway's attitude. He highly approved of the young man

upon whose gallantry in rescue he had enthusiastically and incessantly descanted in all companies. He was in no mood
to find fault with the slight lapse of Boyd Westover from conventional propriety. He liked the way in which Boyd
presented his case, neither justifying his conduct by argument nor offering excuses for it, but treating it as a matter of
manhood necessity.

"I suppose I should not have addressed Margaret when I did," he said in manly fashion; "I ought to have waited,

but under the circumstances I couldn't help myself. Hang it, Colonel, there are times when a man must do things he
ought not."

"Right, my boy, altogether right, absolutely right, eternally right," was the enthusiastic response. "It's blood that

flows in your veins—hot blood—and not tepid milk and water. Why, sir, I courted Margaret's mother as we hung to
the gunwale of a capsized sailboat, and I've been proud of it all my life, sir. A mollycoddle would have waited for her to
comb her hair and put on dry clothes while he was making up pretty speeches for the occasion. That's the mollycoddle's
way. The man's way is to tell the girl he loves her, whenever the right moment comes, and leave the dry clothes and the
pretty speeches for another time. So don't apologize, don't fret, don't give the thing another thought. You shall have
Margaret's hand with her father's blessing whenever you and she choose to fix upon the day. I'll pack The Oaks with
the best of good company; there shall be feasting and—oh, by the way, there's one little formality I suppose you'll have
to go through. There's Margaret's aunt,—my sister Betsy, you know. It'll be best all around if you treat her with
distinguished consideration. She's apt to stand upon her dignity, and I've always found it best to recognize the fact,
gracefully. It ministers to peace and comfort. I think you and Margaret had better present yourselves to her together,
and do the thing up with all the formalities. It will not be necessary to mention to her the little slip you've been confessing
to me. She'd probably take it seriously. It's a way she has. You can just let her think the thing occurred here to-day.
You and Margaret can go out into the garden after dinner, and when you return present yourselves to Betsy and tell her
about it as if it had just happened."

With the reassurance of the solemn words Margaret had spoken the day before, Boyd Westover had no great fear

of anything "Aunt Betsy" might say, but he was disposed to humor Colonel Conway, and besides he foresaw that life at
The Oaks might be pleasanter for Margaret with the old lady's approval than without it. So the little diplomatic
stratagem was carried out so successfully that Aunt Betsy—always chary in the bestowal of praise—said to Margaret
that night:

"If you must marry,—and I suppose you must,—I'm glad you're to marry a young gentleman who observes the

courtesies of life and knows how to treat his elders with proper respect. I rather approve of Mr. Boyd Westover."

"Thank you, Aunt Betsy," Margaret answered, concealing a smile. "You don't often say so much in praise of a

young man."

"Of course not. In these days it's not easy to find young gentlemen who deserve any praise at all. Manners are so

dreadfully lax nowadays. Even you shock and distress me frequently, in spite of the pains I've taken to train you
properly."

"Why, Aunt Betsy, what have I been doing now? Is it something dreadful?"

"From my point of view it is. You spoke of Mr. Boyd Westover just now, by implication at least, as a 'young man.'

A young lady doesn't associate with 'young men'; those whom she recognizes are young gentlemen."

"If you'd seen him encounter that bull and snatch me from under his horns, Aunt Betsy, I reckon you'd have thought

him a good deal of a man."

"No—a good deal of a gentleman rather. The distinction is important, my dear, though I can't make you see it. And

besides he's so polite to his elders, especially ladies. I was never more respectfully treated in my life. He's just like the
young gentlemen of my time. Of course when he addressed you he sank upon his knees—"

"He certainly did nothing of the kind," Margaret answered hotly. "If he had I should have spurned him with

contempt. No man who respects himself would bend his knee to any woman."

"I wish you would say 'gentleman' and 'lady'—and especially wouldn't call yourself a 'woman,' Margaret. It's

positively shocking. But it's so with everybody in these degenerate days—even well-bred young girls, and Heaven is my
witness that I've tried hard, to raise you well. When did he address you the first time?"

"There was only this one time," Margaret answered, dreamily, as she recalled the scene on the porch.

"Do you mean, Margaret, that you accepted him the first time he asked you?"

"Yes, Aunt Betsy, why not? I loved him."

"Margaret, you shock me; worse than that, your conduct grieves and afflicts me. Haven't I told you a thousand

times that no lady ever forgets her dignity so far as that?"

"I haven't counted the times, Aunt Betsy, but probably your estimate of a thousand isn't far wrong. It is more than

five hundred at any rate."

"Margaret, you trifle, and I'm not accustomed to be trifled with."

"I beg your pardon, Aunt Betsy. I didn't mean to trifle. Listen to me seriously now. I hold the love of a man and a

woman to be the holiest thing on earth. I regard all trifling with it as blasphemy, and I think all your rules and
conventionalities concerning it silly and sinful nonsense. If there is ever a time when a woman should be honest and
truthful it is when the man she loves tells her of his love and asks for hers in return. There, I have shocked you
dreadfully, I know, but you forced me to do it. I have spoken the truth as my soul sees it."

Without another word the high-strung girl quitted the room. It was the first time in her life that she had "broken

bounds" with her aunt, and her self-assertion astonished even herself. But she did not and would not repent of it. Love
had brought to her a new dignity of womanhood, that was all.

During the week that followed Boyd Westover found himself a busier man than he had ever been before. He was

up at dawn to set going the day's work in the crops, and not long after sunrise he was apt to appear at The Oaks where
Margaret awaited his coming for their early morning ride. After breakfast with her he returned to his fields, but by four
o'clock he was at The Oaks again for dinner. His evenings were spent in his own chamber, where he toiled over papers
until far into the night, in an effort to master every detail of the financial condition of the Wanalah estate.

When he had done so, he asked for a conference with Colonel Conway, to whom he explained his plans.

"I find that the interest charged on nearly all the notes my father gave is higher than it ought to be; on some it is

positively extortionate. My father was an optimist, I suppose, and he seems to have fallen among thieves—money
lenders, I should say."

"One and the same thing," said the elder man. "I know their kind. I'm myself a victim. Go on."

"Well, as I figure it out, the excessive interest the estate is paying—I mean the amount of interest in excess of a

reasonable rate—eats up about half the tobacco crop every year, and I've decided to stop it, just as we stop the
depredations of the worms and grasshoppers."

"Good! But how?"

"Why, I'm going to Richmond, and perhaps to the North if necessary, to find some one who will take a single

mortgage loan for the whole amount of the estate's debts, a loan carrying a reasonable rate of interest. With the
proceeds I'll cancel all the present debts, and thereafter the estate will have but one creditor, pay a moderate interest
and devote every dollar of surplus earnings to a steady reduction of the principal. I've figured the whole thing out, and
with ordinarily fair crops and a reasonable style of living, I can extinguish the entire debt in ten years or less."

The two went together over the figures, and the older man, who was both shrewd and experienced, pronounced

the plan entirely sound and feasible. It remained only to find the bank, insurance company, or other financial institution
that would make the loan.

In search of that, Boyd Westover set off almost at once for Richmond. As he rode away after parting with

Margaret he turned in his saddle and gaily waved her a last adieu, quite as if the parting were expected to be for months
or years instead of for the brief tale of days the youth assigned to it.

V

PLEASANT DREAMS AND AN UGLY AWAKENING

Boyd Westover sat in his hotel room about nine o'clock in the evening. Papers, mostly memoranda, lay scattered

about upon his table, while some large sheets were spread out before him. On these he was making calculations.

He was a thorough-going person by nature and habit, and he was making careful estimates of the several offers he

had secured for the making of the desired loan on Wanalah plantation, in an effort to determine which of them he might
most wisely accept.

Finally he said to himself:

"The Milhauser offer is the best, or will be if I can persuade the agent to accept a mortgage instead of the deed of

trust he wants. Perhaps I can. He didn't make the condition peremptory, and he clearly wants to secure the loan as an
investment. I'll see him in the morning. No, by the way, he said I'd find him at home this evening if I should want to see
him. I'll walk out to his house now."

Turning to the table he took up one of the memorandum sheets and read at top the number of the agent's house in

far upper Broad Street.

"It's almost out of town," he muttered. "Must be out beyond Richmond College. But the walk will do me good, and

I'll sleep better if I can get the thing settled to-night."

He put an extinguisher over the camphene lamp, and set out without overcoat or wrap of any kind. It was a warm,

cloudy summer night, and the Virginians rarely wore overcoats even in winter. They were horsemen, all of them, and
even the lightest overcoat is a burden and a nuisance to one riding on horseback.

As he walked up Grace Street beneath the spreading shade trees, it began to rain, not heavily but steadily.

Westover was too well accustomed to the out of door life to think of turning back because of a drizzle, but as the rain
increased he turned up the collar of his coat and drew his soft felt hat down over his eyes. Presently he stopped under a
street lamp and consulted a paper which he drew from his pocket. Some detail of the negotiation had escaped his mind
and he stopped thus to refresh his memory.

As he stood there under the lamp with his back turned away from the sidewalk Sam Anderson, an acquaintance of

his own, passed, and recognizing him called out:

"Hello, Boyd! Reading a love letter by the light of a street lamp in a soaking rain? You'd better go indoors

somewhere unless you want to imagine tear drops punctuating the tender missive."

Boyd turned and made some careless reply. The two separated—Boyd going on up Grace Street and turning north

to Broad, while Anderson hurried down town.

The incident was utterly trifling in itself, but it was destined to exercise a baleful influence upon Boyd Westover's

life.

It was nearly an hour after midnight when the young man presented himself again at the hotel office and asked for

his key. The night clerk observed that he was soaked and dripping, for the rain was falling in torrents now, and
suggested the need of a little fire in Boyd's room. The fire was ordered, as the night had grown chill in spite of the
season, and by the time he had got himself into dry clothes, the blaze of the soft coal had made the room so cheerful
that the young man decided to write letters before going to bed. One of them was addressed to Colonel Conway, and
in it Boyd announced his success in arranging the loan, setting forth the terms secured and going minutely into detail. In
the other, which was addressed to Colonel Conway's daughter, he told again of his success, giving no details at all, but
setting forth his rosy anticipations of the coming time—now not far away—when she should be "my lady of Wanalah."

The letter to Colonel Conway was a long one of necessity; that to Margaret was much longer without any necessity

at all. But even the longest letter must come to an end sometime, and at last, about four o'clock in the morning, Boyd
Westover crept into bed, a man altogether happy in the present and confidently hopeful of the future. And why not?
Fortune was bringing him its richest gifts. Love was already his and the future held out to him an assured promise of
happiness and peace in the plantation life he loved. Now that he had succeeded in arranging his financial affairs to his
liking, he had no vexing problems to wrestle with, no cause of anxiety of any kind. With Margaret for his wife, with an
ample sufficiency of this world's goods, he had only to conduct his plantation affairs, to entertain his friends, and to keep

company with his books.

It was of all this he dreamed when he sank to sleep.

When he awoke a constable stood by his bedside, with two of his assistants a few feet farther away.

"Sorry, sir," said the constable. "I don't like to wake a gentleman, sir, and still less in a case like this. If it was only a

common criminal, sir, I shouldn't mind, but with a young gentleman, my duty ain't no ways a pleasant job."

"What do you mean, you ruffian?" angrily asked Westover springing out of bed. "Why do you presume to—"

"'Taint presumin' I reckon," answered the constable, "when I've got this fer my authority. Read it, sir, and see."

Boyd hastily glanced at the paper. It was a warrant for his arrest on a charge of burglary.

He laughed a little, as he proceeded to dress, saying:

"Of course this is a ludicrous mistake, but you are not to blame for it. Those who are will have to answer for their

blundering. I'm ready. Take me to the magistrate."

"He don't git up this soon in the mornin', sir. He was woke up to 'tend to this thing, an' he wa'n't in no pleasant

frame o' mind 'bout it nuther. I reckon he'll lay abed late this mornin' to make up his lost sleep, like. I don't reckon he'll
show hisself in court till 'long 'bout noon."

"Where will you take me, then?"

"I reckon it'll have to be the lock-up, sir."

"The lock-up? You mean a jail?"

"Well jail's the straightaway name fer it, but we mostly calls it lock-up. Seems softer like."

"Now my man, listen to me. You have no right to put me in jail. Your warrant merely directs you to arrest me and

bring me to court. It says nothing about locking me up in jail. I tell you there's some absurd mistake about this thing, and
when I'm brought before the magistrate it will all be cleared up. You can detain me until then without putting a jail
indignity upon me. Stay here at the hotel with me. Go with me to breakfast, leaving your men on guard outside. When
the time comes take me before the magistrate. In the meanwhile I'll send for my lawyer and find out what's to be done."

The constable ran his eye over the muscular young man, and shook his head.

"Can't be did," he replied. "You mout make up your mind to break away, and I don't brag o' stren'th enough to

handle a limber twig like you."

"Well then, you can bring your men with you into the dining room and keep them with you."

"See here, Mr. Westover," interrupted the bailiff, "this here ain't noways a pleasant job fer me, an' ef you'll give me

your word of honor as a gentleman that you won't git me into no trouble by givin' me the slip or tryin' to break bounds,
I'll take the chances on you. I won't go to breakfast with you, 'cause it 'ud make talk ef folks saw a gentleman like you a
entertainin' a feller like me that a ways. I'll jest set down furder down the table like, an' leave my men outside. Is it a
go?"

"Yes, and thank you for your consideration. I give you my word of honor as a gentleman that I will make no

attempt to escape, either during breakfast or at any other time, and that when you wish me to go to the court with you
I'll go without a word. Is that sufficient?"

"Yes, sir, that's enough. A gentleman may do things that gits him into trouble with the courts, but I ain't never

knowed a gentleman to break his word of honor."

The constable was by no means an over-confiding person, but the dictum he announced was based upon the facts

of a social system with which he had been familiar all his life. It would have been accepted without question by any
other man of his class in the commonwealth. Thanks to it, Boyd Westover was left free to go and come at will within the
precincts of the hotel. He hurriedly summoned his friend and attorney, Jack Towns, and remained in conference with
him throughout the morning.

Neither could frame any plausible conjecture as to the meaning of the arrest. There was nothing in any of the

morning newspapers to give even a hint toward the solution of the mystery. It was not the practice of the Richmond
newspapers at that time to print news, except such as related to politics. If by chance they recorded any local
happening, it was by mere mention, in small type in some out of the way corner of columns which were mainly devoted
to ponderous editorial essays on affairs of state, and to a reprint of the proceedings of Congress on the day before.

It was not until the two friends, lawyer and client, were escorted by the bailiff to a magistrate's court that they

learned aught of the charge against the accused man. What they learned there was very little, but it furnished a basis for
further inquiry on their p...